@bobknight33 We need to revisit all the school shootings then, if one can do something illegal and as soon as someone pulls a gun on THEM - HECK! maybe they were just defending themselves Wild West style?

Yes, that is what I meant, as soon as he was approaching with an openly carried gun, wild west rules as I understand them say the moment he attempts to aim at anyone he is open game for anyone who can draw faster.

If you desperately want to live in the wild west that is.

I am totally lost on whether I should be using the sarcasm button on these posts. I am being sarcastic. I believe some form of gun limiting federal law is the only way out of this mess. But then the sarcasm does not make my claim invalid.

I knew an american who came to Prague (turns out he is still here and is still a film producer) who would carry his gun around all the time and randomly pull it out and show it to people at business meetings and in pubs. I thought at the time (early 90s) dude this is SO embarassing. Regular manners in a civilized society since roman times dictate that people do not carry weapons unless danger is imminent. You only carry weapons if you are directly employed to be in dangerous situations, otherwise you are putting yourself and others in danger and appear to be a reckless fool.

So if the USofA consider themselves the wild west to this day, then it is understandable that Kyle was let go, and I say disarm him or shoot him before he shoots you.

Hit him with that skateboard, only harder!

Assault weapon bans. Effectively making illegal the most common rifle in the country (ar15) - even though it's statistically tiny in terms of gun killings.
(~450 people killed per year with all forms of rifle. Only some of that is ar15. That's the ~same amount of people as what die yearly from falling out of bed.)

Suppressor bans. Illegalizing an item that has been statistically as good as nonexistent in firearm crimes.

Banning DIY non-commercial firearms. Illegalizing firearms that have been statistically as good as nonexistent in firearm crimes.

Banning Private Sales (aka gunshow loophole). Effectively banning transfers between family and friends. Even though nearly all illegal arms are acquired by straw purchase at conventional stores by girlfriends.
And commercial sellers at gun shows have to do background checks anyways - this is much ado about old geezers trading collectible wild west / ww2 / antique shit.

Nearly all people are killed by pistols. Nobody is calling for a pistol ban. It makes things like an AWB look like a disingenuous effort - because you can pass all sorts of non-pistol-banning gun control laws and there will be no effect on gun death stats. Meaning you can just make more and more stuff illegal forever so long as you save what really matters (pistols) for last.

Between city, county, state, federal, existing gun laws are fat like an encyclopedia. Most people, unless they are 'gun folk', don't even realize the ways you can go to jail. Put a vertical grip in a pistol and posted it to instagram? Enjoy your time with the ATF. 10 years and $100k, assuming you're lax enough to not hire a lawyer to knock it down a bit. Literally volumes of ways to go to jail for shit you wouldn't even imagine would matter.

Many things people complain about aren't even a thing. Like complaining about buying guns online (you can't, not without an FFL involved), or crazy people buying guns (they can't, unless they've yet to be caught doing crazy shit).

Too many laws as it is. Erase a bunch first.

-scheherazade

@bcglorf

i don't think using @drradon 's example of anarchy a good use as a rebuttal.

now may be larken rose's vision is an extreme example,taken from the von mises institute,and where they dreamily offer a counter to police with a "non-aggression principle".while cute and adorable,humans tend to be far more vicious and violent in nature,especially when desperate.

but again,i think our respective approaches to authority will not find common ground here.

i do not seek a leader,but i am ok with a representative,though i do not seem to have any in my government at the moment.

i find it curious,amazing and not a little disturbing just how easily people will quietly,and tacitly accept a police that has become more and more draconian,violent and aggressive while SIMULTANEOUSLY decreasing the citizens rights to protect themselves,defend themselves and resist unlawful police practices.

because they simply change the law to make what WAS illegal...legal.with a stroke of a pen.

and i simply cannot respect when an american says,without any sense of justice or history,to just sit down,shut up and do what you are told.

while claiming they are a patriot,waving their american flag made in china.

the history of law enforcement in this country reveals that their main job,their main focus and duty is NOT to the poor,the dispossessed or the marginalized.

the police's job is to protect those who hold assets,who have money and wield political power.

and before you say anything,i am quite aware that there are some,and they are the majority,who do their job with honor and distinction.my argument is not about singular police officers but rather the systematic problems inherent in the system.

lets take my city for example.
i am blessed enough to live adjacent to a very wealthy and influential housing development.

average police response time?=7 minutes.

right down the street,not 10 miles down the road,is a depressed area of town.industry and manufacturing abandoned that area 20 years ago.it is stricken with prostitution,heroin addicts and abject poverty.

average police response time?=22 minutes

yet the main police station is in THAT area.

or should i bring up the history of american labor movement?
where the coal miners in west virginia decided to strike,and because the owners of the mines were politically connected.the governor sent in the state police to...and this should send chills down your spine...shoot any miners unwilling to go back to work.

and they did.
they murdered any coal miner still willing to stand up against the owners of the mine,and this included women and children.

now lets examine that for a minute.
workers for a coal mine decided to strike for better working conditions (which were horrible) and actually have a day off,besides sunday (because:god).

the owner of the mine,who was losing immense of amount of money due to zero production of coal,called the governor to have the state police,a civil institution,sent in to put those people down.to force them to either get back to work or face violence.

*now the owner brought in his own mercenary group to assist in the process of intimidation,strong arm tactics and violence.

i will add one more story that is personal,and comes from my own family,and may possibly explain my attitude towards police in general.

my father was born in 1930,in alton illinois.
now that small town had been hit particularly hard during the depression.my father spoke of not having indoor plumbing until he went into the navy,and how the floors in his childhood home were simple boards over dirt.

he grew up extremely poor,and my grandfather struggled to find steady work,and i gather from what my father told me.my grandpa made bootleg beer out of the bathtub.so he and his 6 brothers and 1 sister had to bathe in the mississippi river while grandpa tried to make money by selling illegal hooch.

my father also regaled me with stories of the chores he had as the youngest of 8 kids.it was his job every morning to head to the train tracks and pick the coal that dropped from the coal carts.(which he admitted to being lazy and stole directly from the very full coal cart itself while his brother kept an eye out for the station master).

my point is that my father grew up in desperate and poor times.

but one story always stood out,and i think it is because it has a wild west feel to it that always transfixed me,and i made him tell me the story over and over as a child.

when times are tough,people will do whatever they have to in order to survive,so my grandfather making illegal hooch was not the only illegalities being played out in that small town.neighbor upon neighbor did what they had to,and most were considered criminals in the eyes of the state.

so i guess one of my grandpa's friends was on the run from the law,and sought refuge at my grandpa's home.which he allowed,because neighbors take care of neighbors,at least they used to.

well,in a small town everybody knows everybody,and eventually three police officers showed up at my grandpa's house,and demanded that he turn over (i forgot the guys name).

and i remember the pride on my fathers face whenever he retold this story....

my grandfather stood tall on the top of his stairs facing his front door,holding his gun he was given during WW1 and told the police officers (which he knew.small town remember?),that if they took one step into his home..he would blow their heads off.

now this is a story retold from a childs perspective many years later.i am sure my fathers memory was a tad....biased..but i would bet the meaty parts were accurate.

now my question is this:
how would that exact same scenario play out in todays climate?

well,we would see on the 6 o'clock news how a family was tragically shot to death for harboring a criminal and that the police had done EVERYTHING in their power to avoid this kind of violence.

i know this is long,and i hope i didn't lose you along the way,but i think we should not dismiss the very real slow decent into a society that silently obeys,quietly accepts more and more authoritarian powers all in the name of "safety",and that any form of resistance is to be viewed as "criminal" and "troublesome".

so while i agree that "when should we shoot a cop" should be in the realm of:let us try to never do that.

i also cannot agree to placing cops on a hero platform as if their job is somehow sacrosanct and beyond reproach.they are human beings,of limited intellect,whose main job it is to protect those who own property,have wealth and wield political power.

and with the current disparity and blatant inequality their job has been more and more focused on keeping those 30% undesirables down.

the poor,the destitute,the marginalized,the addict and the junkie and the petty criminals.

those are a threat to the "better" citizens.they are a blight on a community that should be cleansed from the tender eyes of those who are deemed more "worthy".

rich folk may wring their hands,and lament the plight of the poor and wretched,but for GOD's sakes! they don't want to actually SEE them!

so a police officer can do all the mental gymnastics they want in order to justify their place in society,but at the end of the day,they serve the elites.

and they always have.

Man, I'm suuuper late to this party....
Anyways, Die Hard is and is not a Christmas movie at the same time. And it depends on your definition what makes a Christmas movie.
I'm gonna take an insane detour here that'll make sense.
Is Star Wars Episode 4 a science fiction movie?
That setting is futuristic, sure, must be sci-fi then. Lasers, Spaceships, Robots, the works. The checklist is done. Sci-Fi.
But what are the themes it touches upon, what is the story?
A young farmer's boy (naturally an adoptred orphan) named Luke is dragged into a rebellion against an evil king (Palpatine) by accident. When the boy get's hold of a pretty princess' (RIP Carrie Fisher) message to an old ally and menthor (Obi) through the fault of her two comic-relief servants (Robot-slaves), he decides to seek the adventure he's yearning for. He finds the old man (by fucking up) and both seek the next harbor to board a ship to join the resistance. The hire smuggler/pirate/bandit/nerfherder Han and his foreign friend Chewie and cross paths with the black knight Lord Vader, the evil kings enforcer. Hijinks ensue, princess rescued, the magic castle/ship/train of the evil king get's destroyed and everyone gets a medal.
What's exactly sci-fi here?
That could play out in medieval times. Or ancient greece. Or the wild west. Or on Christmas.
The setting and the genre are two different things and both determine what you'll label a story with.
Alien is a horror movie, a slasher. Aliens is a war movie. Alien³ is a horror movie of the animal-gone-maneater kind. Alien: Resurrection is a disaster movie (hihi).
They're all sci-fi, like Star Wars. Because of the setting.
Now look at Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 2 Episode 9 'The Measure Of A Man'.
Lasers, spaceships, robots, the usual. What is it about?
A Robot who's so sophisticated that he has to go to trial to prove he's not property but a real boy. Sure, you'll say, I've seen Pinocchio and I can see african men argue the same stuff in the 18th century. The point of the story is not only that is humanity is questioned, the point is he's an artificial lifeform. The question is not only 'What makes you a person?' but also 'When does artificial intelligence become an artificial person?'
That shit won't work in a setting without spaceships and robots. That's sci-fi because of its story.
So, setting and story are both what makes you label a movie a certain way but they're not the same.
Die Hard. Happens on Christmas. Could be Thanksgiving too. Setting interchangeable.
Story? Doesn't contain any christmas-related themes beyond two estranged family members become closer again. That could happen at a funeral as well.
I'm in my mid-thirties and I love Die Hard. It's one of the best 80's action movies. I can watch it anytime and I've seen it at least 20 times (noit joking here). But mostly in the summer. But I understand the question and its diverse answers perfectly well.
Die Hard is a christmas movie if it feels like one to you. For me, Lord of the Rings (especially Fellowship) feels like a Christmas movie to me. I've seen them all in theatres in December, I watched them on VHS and Blu-Ray only in December so far. They have fuck all to do with the occasion but this year was the first one I didn't watch any of them in December. And I feel I missed something this year. I'm not sure I can watch them at this time of the year.

Your video, Adam Ruins Everything: How Prostitutes Settled the Wild West, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

"some of 'em will be Wild Wild West"


awww... bless your heart Will Smith.

@Mordhaus

"We have always been a gun violence culture up until the post WW2 era. Think frontier, wild west, duels, and mafia shootouts. We glorify violence everyday, we even give sickos who shoot up groups of people mass media coverage. "

Don't you think that that idea is outdated in 2016? Fine, that's the culture. Change the fucking culture.

When I grew up in Ireland, nobody gave a second thought to driving drunk. Sunday after church, people went to the pub, had a few pints with the neighbours, the kids played space invaders and then the whole family got back in the car and drove home.

And most of the time, it was absolutely fine. People got home, there was the occasional accident, but ya know, what can ya do?

Until it wasn't fine. And it took decades, but eventually, it became socially unacceptable to drive drunk.

"I'm just extremely leery of package deals like lets ban everyone who ends up on a list from having weapons based on a government decision."
I get that. But be reasonable. You're ok with not letting people fly, but you draw the line at owning weapons?

That is some fucked up list of priorities. I would be far more concerned with restricting someones right to travel (essentially restricting their freedom of movement, or a lighter form of incarceration) than whether they can own a gun.

You say that owning a gun is a constitutional right whereas travel isn't. I say that freedom of movement is a fundamental basic human right... oh, look at that, Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights!
"Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state."

I'm completely willing to say that it should be a lot harder to put someone on this kind of list, but there's no way the right to own a weapon is more important than freedom of movement.

Finally, re: slippery slopes
"The Patriot Act, meant to be a well intended set of rules to help us protect ourselves, has been perverted to lessen quite a few of our rights."

The Patriot Act wasn't a slippery slope, it started at the bottom of the slope and went straight over a fucking cliff. It should never have been passed in the first place.

We have always been a gun violence culture up until the post WW2 era. Think frontier, wild west, duels, and mafia shootouts. We glorify violence everyday, we even give sickos who shoot up groups of people mass media coverage. For a person who wants to go out in a blaze of infamy, we are custom tailored to give them their last 15 minutes of 'fame'.

Again, we have a nebulous definition of what it takes to get on the watch list. I could be placed on it simply by stating something to the effect that "I support ISIS", even though I don't. Restricting people who manage to end up on a government list is the same as removing their right to a firearm after committing a felony offense, only you have removed every single bit of their right to a legal defense. There is no due process to being placed on a US watchlist, you get put on and fuck you if it was a mistake. Maybe they'll take you off later, who knows?

I am not going to defend a slippery slope argument on this, I don't have to. It's already happened in the years since 2001. The Patriot Act, meant to be a well intended set of rules to help us protect ourselves, has been perverted to lessen quite a few of our rights. Not only our rights, but other countries. We have violated their security, spied on their people and leaders, and we perform acts of war on their territories with impugnity. All because we lost two buildings and 2,996 people; a heinous act, but one our government exploited to put us into 2 wars with a death toll to people who may not even be our enemies that dwarf our loss. In short, we fucking have the slippery slope process down to a SCIENCE.

I take these "everything you thought you knew is wrong" presentations for the fluff-pieces that they are, Slate.com is full of them. This guy is just as glib and vague as any myth that people may be spouting. You want to dispel some misconceptions then do the research, like they did in the Wild West.

"Access to guns" certainly plays a role, but I'm not convinced that it is even the biggest factor. In web researching gun violence rates and mass shooting rates by country *per capita*, I've found that the US isn't really as much of a "wild west" / lawless nation as the media portrays it.

For example:
http://www.ijreview.com/2015/06/348197-obama-said-mass-shootings-dont-happen-in-advanced-countries-like-in-us-one-chart-proves-him-wrong/
has interesting data. It is *clearly* biased / written with an "agenda", and there are other problems with it (small countries with one or two incidents rule the top of the chart), but it is interesting nonetheless.

I think culture has as big or bigger impact as anything else.


As to your final paragraph, I'm hesitant to paint all "terrorists and mass-shooters" with the "pathetic little shit" brush. I think the tendency to dismiss them in that way when trying to delve deeper into the questions of *why* does us a disservice in terms of preventing and/or limiting those people and incidents.

It's sorta like examining Hitler. Went about as evil and wrong as a human being has ever gone, and so we often want to just leave it at that. But I think that there have probably been plenty of garden-variety non-famous people who have been as evil and wrong as Hitler, but simply didn't have the unique level of power and opportunity to, uh, "sink to his depths".

Congratulations. You've managed to capture the entire diversity of the US by visiting several times and not get shot or had a gun pointed at you. This is like forming an opinion about whether sharks will bite humans after you've laid on the beach once or twice and have never been bitten. Searching for some relevance here... and ... nope, none.

Agreed, if your gun is in a traditional safe, it's not much good when the burglars or home invasion psychos kick in your front door at 2 a.m. Jim Jeffries is indeed a funny guy, but like many who don't understand what "for protection" means to some homeowners here in the US, you might want to cite a bit more credible source or at least educate yourself.

Thanks to biometric safes and locking devices, it is quite easy to have a secured gun in a safe at arms reach, accessible to only one person, that can be unsecured, ready to fire in about 4 seconds. I know this to be true, because I have such a setup, and we practice what to do when the home alarm goes off just like we practice fire drills.

The distressing part is I absolutely hate having to be in such a situation. I'm no cowboy and this isn't the wild west, but when families around me are having their doors kicked in in the middle of the night by armed thugs, or having one or two fuckheads follow them up the driveway for an easy push-in robbery accompanied by beatings, shootings, molestation and sometimes killing, I decided that there would be no way I could live with myself if something tragic ever happened to my family at the hands of these nut jobs, knowing I might have been able to do something to stop it. And no, one can't relay on the local police to take care of these crimes. Around here, even with a top notch alarm system in the house that goes directly to dispatch, the cops usually arrive to clean up the blood and take statements, and almost never in time to stop the crime or catch the criminals.

Do you have house, car, fire or life insurance? Sure, but you hope you'll never have to use it. So, what's so unbelievable about a gun for protection? What do you suggest? You appear to think it's silly to state it's for protection... so does one simply relying on hope, faith or good luck in never having to witness your wife or child being duct taped to a chair while criminals rummage through your house, or having their head kicked in or bloodied on the end of a baseball bat?

Just a suggestions, but try to spend some time as an actual resident in a country before you pretend to understand it, consider yourself fortunate that you don't live in such a situation, and for fucks sake stop with the snide, morally superior judgement of those who do. If you can muster that, on a guess that you might be from NZ but really don't know, I'll stop telling everyone that Kiwi's really do fuck sheep, especially on National Lamb Day when it's a competition rather than just a hobby.

Have fun.

It always amazes me whenever someone says they want a gun "for protection".

The U.S. is not the wild west anymore; I've been there several times and no one shot me, shot at me or even pointed a gun at me.

In NZ, if you want to buy a gun, you have to apply for a firearms license. If you don't have mental illness or a criminal record, you then state your reason for applying:
Hunting? Sweet, get some venison!
Target shooting? Awesome, have fun on the range!
Protection? Licence denied. We're all good without amateur idiots running around being paranoid.

Because of this, if you have a gun it is legally required to be secured in a gun safe. As Jim Jeffries puts it, a gun in a gun safe isn't much good if you want it for "protection"
*related=http://videosift.com/video/Jim-Jefferies-on-gun-control

Original Westworld was a SciFi movie from 1973. basically an amusement park themed like the wild west, but using animatronic robots, 1 of which goes apeshit.
Good, but like most movies from the 70's, was very slow paced.

I would say they exercised too much restraint in that case, i credit them for their restraint, but i wouldn't want things to get far enough to have one of them get shot. Smack the crap out of a fighter with a telescopic baton, by all means, or pepper spray, or tazer.

Interesting though that it was their own gun that ended up escalating the physical confrontation into a firearm confrontation. However with the wild west nostalgia for gun laws over there, i can't see how you could send them out unarmed.